Harper's New Monthly Magazine Volume 104 December 1901 to May 1902 . igure. That they served such a purposeas ornamenting the pediment of a smalltemple, or cedicula, became evident fromthe treatment of the back of the seatedfemale figure; for the back is roughlyworked in an unfinished manner, and iskept on the flat to lean against theperpendicular back of the pediment. But even a hasty examination of thereclining nude male figure at once show-ed its striking relation to the river-godfrom the western pediment of the Par-thenon—nay, its undoubted dependenceupon this type. The sculptor who madeth
Harper's New Monthly Magazine Volume 104 December 1901 to May 1902 . igure. That they served such a purposeas ornamenting the pediment of a smalltemple, or cedicula, became evident fromthe treatment of the back of the seatedfemale figure; for the back is roughlyworked in an unfinished manner, and iskept on the flat to lean against theperpendicular back of the pediment. But even a hasty examination of thereclining nude male figure at once show-ed its striking relation to the river-godfrom the western pediment of the Par-thenon—nay, its undoubted dependenceupon this type. The sculptor who madethe statuette, however, did not attempt tomake an accurate copy while standingbefore the Parthenon, but, perhaps frommemory, perhaps from other copies, whichwere as familiar to the ancient world as they are to us, he modified the Kephis-sos by another type from the same Par-thenon pediments. For it will be seenthat while he used the river-god fromthe western pediment for the lower partof his statuette, he did not give to theupper part of the body that characteris-. Marble Statuette in Dresden (Aphrodite) tic and wonderful twist and turn whichadds so much to the action of this mas-terpiece, and gives such rare opportunityfor the modelling of the torso, owingto the strain which the turning move-ment produces in the centre of the fig-ure. The upper part of his figure thecopyist took from the Theseus, or Olym-pos (as I prefer to call him), of the east-ern pediment. Our Dresden statuette thus representsa copy from the Kephissos of the Par-thenon, slightly modified in the upperpart of the figure. This modification,again, is not a pure invention out of thehead of the copyist; but, as if his artis-tic imagination were entirely dependentupon the Parthenon marbles, steeped inthem or saturated with them, he takesthis modification from another nudemale figure of the pediments, nearestto it in type, namely, the Olympos ofthe eastern pediment. 16 HARPERS MONTHLY MAGAZINE. How well known and
Size: 1375px × 1817px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorvarious, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1902
